


A Summer of Snow

by Jade_Masquerade



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 14:59:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8582833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Masquerade/pseuds/Jade_Masquerade
Summary: Sansa spends her last few months before going off to college getting closer to Jon.





	

Sansa didn’t know why it surprised her to see Jon. 

Perhaps it was because she was a different person the last time she saw him two whole years ago, before he’d left for college and then spent last summer working there before Robb convinced him to come back home to Winterfell for this one. 

Much had happened since then. Like her obtaining a driver’s license. Like her high school graduation. Like Joffrey dumping her the night before homecoming seven months ago and then showing up at the dance with Margaery. 

So maybe that was why Jon’s sudden reappearance unnerved her, because he seemed like someone she knew a lifetime ago. 

She noticed the change in his hair first. It had always been his most defining feature, and not necessarily in a good way—she thought of his rumpled curls, sticking up in every direction when he used to try taming it by keeping it short. He’d grown it out now, and his beard too, he appeared to have gotten a bit taller, and he seemed to have spent some time doing something besides playing video games and reading books like she remembered. 

She recalled a conversation she’d had with Jeyne Poole and Margaery one summer a few years back, right after school let out and they had started living the life, coming over to the Stark house each day to relax by the pool. 

“You know who could be cute,” Jeyne mused. 

“Do not say Robb,” Sansa warned. Jeyne had been on about him ever since his eighth grade growth spurt. 

“Don’t you think I know well enough by now?” Jeyne rolled her eyes. “No. Jon.” 

Sansa remembered doing a literal spit-take, thankful her mouth was filled with just water and not soda as she splashed it down herself, gasping with laughter. “ _What?_ ” 

Neither one of her friends joined her. 

“That’s actually true,” Margaery said, watching Sansa now over her sunglasses in that ever-observant way of hers. “I mean, he’s a little straggly, he needs a makeover, to fill out bit, some new clothes, but…” 

“But?” Sansa had pushed then. 

_But…_ she thought now. _They were right._

He was still Jon, though. Still Robb’s best friend, still quiet, still reserved. 

“Hi, Jon,” she said when she realized she was staring. 

“Hi, Sansa,” he said.

At least that way he hadn’t changed a bit. 

\----------

Sansa struggled to contort herself beside the pool so she could smear sunscreen on her back. She didn’t know why she even bothered to lay out; no matter what she did, she either burned or stayed the same pale shade of milk white. She found herself grateful, though, that this time she didn’t have anyone to compare herself, as she had in the past. She’d always watched Margaery’s hair lighten as she developed an enviable sun-kissed glow while Jeyne’s skin turned a tan that made her light eyes strikingly stand out against her dark hair. 

At least it was relaxing, she told herself. Or at least it was until she fell asleep and woke up burnt a lobster red, hence the inane amount of lotion she now had coating most surfaces of her body, except for a long, infuriating stripe down either side of her spine. 

“Let me help you,” Jon said, his voice startling her. He picked up the bottle and squeezed a reasonable amount of sunscreen out. 

His hands made the coldness of the lotion bearable, pleasant, even. 

Jon had always been nice to her. She remembered a time, when he’d still been in high school, and she’d needed a ride to Joffrey’s and he had offered. 

“Um, no,” she had said with derision, thinking about what Margaery and Joffrey would have said if she pulled up in front of the Baratheon mansion in a ten-year-old beater with someone as “uncool” as Jon, who didn’t even live in Winterfell proper, but rather on the outskirts, where the huge plots of land with enormous houses and sprawling lawns gave way to winding roads and undeveloped forest.

She winced at the memory. How many times like that had there been? 

“Thank you,” she said, sincerely, when he finished, not just for that, but for everything. 

\--------------

No one questioned Sansa when she joined their little group of friends. In fact, she thought they were grateful, especially Jon, who no longer had to serve as the awkward fifth wheel to Robb and his new girlfriend, Jeyne Westerling, and Theon and his love interest of the day. 

She found it a welcome respite from the loneliness that plagued her senior year. 

This was supposed to have been the best year ever, or so everyone said. Once you were done with college applications, they told her, it was time to relax, enjoy, and have fun with your friends. And it had been fun, until she’d lost Joffrey, Margaery, Jeyne Poole, and the vast majority of their mutual friends in one fell swoop. They dropped away one by one, until only Mya Stone and Myranda Royce remained so at least she had someone to eat lunch with and talk to in class. They were nice, but they were just school friends, not close like her, Margaery, and Jeyne had been, and now that summer hit, even they too had gone their separate ways. 

It was nice to have places to go and people to do things with, even if it was just her brother and his friends, including Theon, who sometimes grated on her last nerve. Jeyne was nice, too, although most of their interactions consisted of her reminiscing about her own high school experience and querying Sansa about college, and she seemed to have one hand in Robb’s more often than not, so she found herself more often preferring Jon’s quiet companionship instead. 

She partnered with him the day she tagged along on their trip to the amusement park, riding the roller coasters beside him and screaming next to him on the giant drop, joined his team when they went bowling and returned his consistent high-fives even as she threw one gutter ball after another, and thanked him profusely during their trip to the summer fair, where Jon graciously volunteered to hold the stick of her pink cotton candy as they walked around so she could peel off long lengths of it, cold lemonade occupying her other hand. He even invited her to share his blanket during the fireworks afterward when Robb and Jeyne decided to engage in a few of their own. 

It was liberating, really, to spend time with people who hadn’t had front row seats to the trainwreck of the last year. No one walked on eggshells around her, expecting her to leak tears at any moment, and mentions of Joffrey were kept to the minimum, except in unavoidable instances, and even then Robb and Jon had taken to referring to him as “that fucking prick.”

Every time kind, soft-spoken Jon Snow muttered _that_ under his breath, it made her laugh. 

\-------------

Jon wasn’t a sieve, she realized. She could tell him things without being judged like Margaery always had, without being ridiculed like Arya constantly did, without him trying to find reckless solutions for hopeless situations like with Robb. Someone to just listen was all she wanted, and she quickly discovered there was no one better at that than Jon. 

It started when they spent a long evening talking on the back porch while Robb and Jeyne disappeared in the trees bordering their property to go play with Grey Wind and Summer, and Sansa and Jon sought to distract themselves from what they were probably actually doing. 

She found herself spilling everything she’d bottled up for months, the things that she thought no one else could understand, until Jon murmured and nodded, and she knew that he did. He was surprisingly empathetic, cringing when she told him how Margaery had posted pictures accompanied by emoji hearts all over her Instagram of her and Joffrey’s recent trip to the lake cabin his family owned, and only making a single choked sound when she mentioned how Joffrey had taken the opportunity several weeks prior to text her a reminder on the anniversary of the very day she’d lost her virginity to him two years ago. 

Talking about Joffrey spiraled into telling Jon how Ramsay Bolton had cornered her in the hallway at school one day after hearing her and Joff had split up, and how she shuddered when she thought of what he’d hissed against her ear about what he wanted to do to her, and how she could still feel his hands on her waist, insistent and repugnant. 

That, and more of Jon’s patient attentiveness led to her sharing how Harry Hardyng had texted her relentlessly for months, merely asking her out on dates at first, and then senior prom, his advances becoming increasingly lewd as she rejected him each and every time. She cursed herself for almost giving in at one point, and even admitted so to Jon, because she so wanted to just have someone there, someone to show the world she wasn’t really alone, abandoned and shunted aside by the people she once loved most. 

“I’m talking too much,” she said finally, when she no longer had any more woes or worries to disclose. 

“Not possible,” he said. 

\-------------

Sansa thought of her for-once enviable status as she walked into the party at Renly Baratheon’s house. No parents, no curfews, college guys, and free-flowing liquor… it was the high school dream. 

Too bad no one from said high school talked to her anymore. 

That was just as well though, since the Sansa of old would probably have wasted time on petty gloating, bragging to them about how many boys she’d talked to and all of the drinks she’d tried. Instead, Sansa sequestered herself in the quietest space she could find, the game room off the kitchen and living room, both of which were packed with people who spilled over into the backyard, and entertained herself by playing pool with Jon and sipping on the vodka cranberry he’d made for her upon request. As one of the few there who were under age, she’d offered to drive and not drink, but Jon had insisted on being their ride, so he balanced his solo cup of soda on the edge of the table while he bent over to aim at the cue ball. 

What started as a serious attempt to play soon devolved into a contest of tricks as neither one of them made many successful shots, not that their efforts to make one ball jump over another or get them to curve or spin turned out any better. Sansa lost track of the whereabouts of everyone else; Robb and Jeyne had long since vanished, unlikely to resurface anytime soon, and she could see Theon cozied up with not one, but two girls on the couch. Even the thump of the music, the lively chatter from the rooms beyond, and the shouts of the beer pong players outside seemed muted, as though they existed in a different dimension entirely and were not merely separate facets of the same gathering. 

So it was especially jarring when she heard the tinkle of a familiar laugh followed by a sharp, recognizable voice that made her stomach twist for reasons not associated with the small amount of alcohol she’d ingested. She looked up and spotted the profiles of two individuals she knew far too well filling up drinks in the kitchen. 

She should have known Margaery and Joffrey would show up at some point. After all, Margaery’s brother Loras, who Sansa had harbored a childhood crush on, had been dating Renly for years, and Joffrey was Renly’s distant cousin, even if they did not get along well.

Margaery laughed again, the sound shrill above the music and conversation, and Joffrey snaked his free hand around her backside. 

Jon downed the dregs of his coke and announced he was ready to leave. Sansa murmured she was tired too, and that she should just let Robb know they were headed home, but by the time Jon found a way to extricate themselves from the crowd, they were already outside and striding determinedly toward his car. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” Sansa said, gripping the armrest as Jon floored the gas pedal. 

“I did,” he said. 

The police broke up that party about an hour after they left, thirty minutes after Jon dropped her off at home, and even though he said nothing about it the next day, Sansa couldn’t keep the smile off her face. 

\------------

Sansa didn’t know when it happened. 

Had it happened over the course of a day? In a week? A month? She didn’t know, but it only took a single moment for her to realize Jon was her best friend now. 

She noticed when she received her dorm and roommate assignment, and he was the first person she wanted to tell. She didn’t know why; it wasn’t like Jon would care about room layouts or decorations or anything of the like, but she had to share it with someone, and he wasn’t likely to issue a sea of questions. Margaery would have wondered if they shared the same size, if they could share clothes, while Arya would have sung about how this poor, unfortunate soul had to deal with Sansa for a year, and Robb probably would have blurted something impulsively stupid like, “Is she hot?” despite having a girlfriend of his own.

Jon only said, “Congratulations,” and asked her name, and if she’d spoken with her yet, and Sansa could deal with that. 

She wondered if any boy had liked her—would ever like her—the way Jon did. They could simply sit in silence together, not the awkward, uncomfortable kind Margaery always filled with her smooth voice or Jeyne with her giggles, or Theon with his lewd comments and Robb with his jokes, but just the kind that made it pleasant to exist beside someone else, someone who didn’t feel the need to press his opinion upon her, or lecture her, or gossip or slander. 

She wondered if anyone else would ever be there to help her, to listen to her, to spend time with her without the expectation of anything at all in return. 

With Jon, there were no accusations, no demands, no arguments. It was… easy. 

\-----------

“Where’s Jon?” 

Robb sat alone on the couch when Sansa came downstairs Sunday morning. Sundays usually meant hanging out, swimming in the pool, or taking spontaneous day trips. 

Robb glanced up from his phone, where he was undoubtedly texting Jeyne to ask her whereabouts. “He said he had some things to do around the house today.”

“Oh. Right.” She tried to make her voice sound normal and turned to examine her reflection in the hall mirror, tugging down the hem of the short pink sundress she’d chosen to wear. For some reason, she found herself caring lately what she wore when Jon came over, and she’d taken time to put on makeup even. 

Instead of waiting around to observe the outcome of Robb’s quest to lure Jeyne over for brunch or whatever people in soppy relationships did, she did some quick detective work, found out Jon’s address, and announced she was going out for lunch. A stop at the deli later, she pulled onto the long, unmarked, gravel road that she’d seen existed at least on Google Maps. 

Just when she was about to give up and turn around, she saw the outline of a small house through the trees and Jon digging up a space of earth out front. 

The slam of her car door seemed too loud in the forest. 

“Sansa.” Jon straightened, lifting a mud-smeared arm to push back his stray curls from where they’d escaped, the rest of his hair pulled up. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you could use some help,” she lied, realizing a second too late she’d been so busy looking up the route to his place and thinking about what he’d most want to eat that she hadn’t thought up an adequate excuse to explain her presence. 

He raised his eyebrows. “Like that?”

“I, um, didn’t have time to change,” she said, hoping it sounded more like a confession rather than a flat-out fib. “And I brought lunch.” 

He’d sweated through most of his thin white t-shirt—she wondered if Margaery would have found that gross--but Sansa couldn’t look away from where it clung to his body. 

“We can eat inside,” he suggested. “It’ll be cooler.” 

She cast a nervous glance at the front door. Jon’s mom left when he was young, and his dad died while he was in high school, leaving Jon the house, so it wasn’t as if anyone else were here to make this even more awkward. 

“Or outside,” he said, noticing her hesitation. “There’s a table on the patio out back.” 

She set the food out while Jon slipped inside and reemerged with drinks—water for him, lemonade for her—and looking much cleaner than before. 

She looked up just in time to see Jon glance away a second too late. 

He settled down in the seat across from her while she tried to figure out if he’d been that red in the face before or if he’d gotten some sun during his morning outside. “Are you sure you want to sit at this table? It’s dirty… and your dress is nice.” 

“It’s fine,” she said with a smile, because that was what Jon did, worry about nothing at all, and how he was, thoughtful and kind. “And thank you.” 

She told him how she bought it on her last ever shopping excursion with Margaery, even though she hadn’t known it then, and she’d instantly loved it, even though it was the kind of thing she usually didn’t wear. Margaery had called it “hot, hot, hot,” despite it being cheap and of simple construction, and Sansa admitted she didn’t know how she felt about that evaluation now. 

“If you love it,” Jon said, swallowing so his throat bobbed, “Then Margaery be damned.” 

Her smile broadened, and she averted her eyes from his to sip her lemonade. 

In between bites of her chicken sandwich, she asked Jon what he’d been up to, and he told her about weeding his vegetable garden, stacking up logs for the fire place beside the back door, trimming the branches of the trees that had started to encroach upon his house, and how he still had to make it out to the creek that ran through the property to check on the bridge that crossed over it. 

And soon they were en route to said bridge, the one that he said he was certain only he used anyway so he wasn’t sure why it even mattered if the boards rotted through or the railings wobbled, or why it even existed when the water ran slow and shallow enough to cross with high boots. Jon offered to turn back every time the trail turned rocky, or they emerged from the shade of the trees into the bright, hot strips of sun, or the path steepened or descended. She reassured him she was just fine, and that her strappy sandals were much more comfortable than they appeared.

The winding creek appeared after they climbed a final hill, the bridge arching over the water like a natural extension of the trees that lined the banks on either side. Jon edged his way into the middle first and waved for her to follow a moment later. The wood didn’t creak as she expected when she set foot upon it—it stood strong, solid, and inflexible. 

“My dad and I always used to come here,” he said. “To have picnics and feed the ducks when I was younger, and just to sit and talk when I got older.” 

He bit his lip, and she waited for him to finish his thought. “I’ve never brought anyone else here before.” 

“Not even Robb?”

“Especially not Robb,” he laughed. 

“I’m glad you showed me, then.” 

Somehow, Sansa inherently knew this moment was indelible: the smell of the running water, the vivid green of the leaves, the sound of birds chirping and squirrels scampering. It was all so beautiful, she almost wished she could draw her eyes away from Jon to take it all in. Almost. 

“Is it weird if I want to kiss you?” 

“No,” she said.

\----------

She stared out over the pool and brushed her knuckles across her lips, just like Jon had done when they had finished kissing. His mouth had been gentle, his lips surprisingly soft and pliant. He had cupped her cheek, his hand warm and pleasant. They moved at a languid pace, her surprise and thrill soothed by one fluid, undemanding glide after another. 

She hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. First, the only person she’d consider telling had been the other participant, and second, it didn’t even seem real. The more she thought about it, the more the details blurred together: how exactly she’d ended up backed against the railing of the bridge, unsure if it happened by her own actions or his; how long they stood there, consuming each other; how her hands had ended up on him, twisted in his shirt and his hair. 

She’d hurriedly bid him farewell and left when they returned to his house, completely forgetting her original offer to help him, and when he’d come by yesterday, the day before that, and three days ago, he hadn’t acted any different, laughing with Robb and Jeyne as usual when they went out for ice cream, sitting beside her with his hands to himself as they watched a movie, asking her normal questions about her college move-in date and if she’d registered for classes yet. 

If it had been just that one time, just that one perfect moment, she would have accepted it.

But what if it wasn’t? 

\-----------

Sansa woke to rain. She’d learned to hate it for more than one reason: it meant she couldn’t lay out by the pool and waste the day swimming when the sun grew too warm, it meant being trapped inside with Robb and Jeyne and their nonsense, and, worst of all, it usually meant Jon wouldn’t come over until later, if at all. 

Thunder rolled in the distance, and she thought about the moment on the bridge again. As much as she didn’t know what to say, she wanted to ask Jon about it. Had it meant anything? Had he simply been struck by nostalgia? Had he gone on living his life while she laid here, rendered dumbstruck? 

She’d gone to him once. Why not again?

It only took a minute for her to be up, putting only a t-shirt on over her tank top and shorts she wore to bed, a few seconds more in the bathroom to splash water over her face and brush her teeth, and in another she was out the door, not even bothering to tell anyone where she had gone. 

His house was much easier to find the second time around; this time, it was the long walk from the car up the long gravel pathway to the door that caused her difficulty, and she cursed her choice of flip flops as they slid on the wet stones. 

She raised a hand to knock, and the door swung open before she could. 

Jon stood there, clad in grey boxer briefs. She caught a flash of his bare abdomen before he tugged a white t-shirt down over it. 

“Jon,” she said, breathlessly. “How did you—”

Another wave of rain crashed down, and he pulled her inside. 

“Sorry to wake you.” She shook out her hair. There hadn’t been time for hats or umbrellas. 

“No, no, thank you for preventing me from sleeping the day away,” he said. “Sorry I’m not… presentable. I can change—” 

“Don’t bother,” she said, not able to think of an adequate excuse for her appearance this time. 

He smiled. “Breakfast?” 

“Sure,” she said, following him down the hallway to the kitchen, where he invited her to take a seat at the island. Jon pulled out boxes from his pantry, cereal and pancake mix and muffins, cartons of eggs and berries and yogurt from the fridge, and glasses for milk or orange juice or water, whichever she preferred. In the end, they decided on making pancakes with the fresh blueberries, and Jon set to work, waving away all of her offers to help. 

The interior of Jon’s house was homier than she had imagined; it lacked the touches in her own that she associated with her mother’s influence—the fresh flowers adorning their side tables where here the surfaces of plain, rough-hewn wood were left empty, artwork hanging on the walls rather than empty nails, the books all organized on the shelves instead of being placed wherever they may have been, but it was lived in, comfortable, and relaxed in a way the Stark household could never be with five siblings, their parents, and the dogs to boot. 

What had it been like for Jon to live here, all by himself, so far away from everything and everyone? She would have once thought it to be a nightmare, but after nearly a year of feeling solitary, the prospect seemed comforting rather than terrifying, more like an escape instead of a punishment. Still, she thought of how Jon had ended up in this situation, of the losses he suffered, of how it must feel to be really and truly alone, and shuddered. 

“Are you cold?” he asked, noticing her shiver. “There’s a bunch of sweaters in my dresser.”

Sansa denied and denied until she couldn’t any longer, because the offer of a big, soft sweater that smelled like Jon was too tempting to refuse. 

She’d always wondered what his room would be like, messy or clean, cluttered or neat, bright or subdued. His bed was unmade, the marine blue sheets pushed to one side, but she easily forgave that—she’d intruded upon him, after all. Taking any more than a cursory glance seemed like an invasion of privacy, so she aimed her attention at the dresser which sat against one wall, perpendicular to the bathroom. 

She pulled open the top drawer and almost shut it right away when she saw socks and underwear. She _should_ have closed it, she knew. She glanced into the hall, and with no Jon in sight, she stared again into the drawer. 

Tucked into one side was a box of condoms. Screw privacy, and cue curiosity. 

She took the box out of the drawer to see it still sealed. Did he simply live in a state of overpreparedness? Or did that mean he’d thought about…? She rolled her eyes. _Of course_ he’d thought about sex. But with who? With her? 

She closed the drawer and turned to go back to the kitchen, nearly forgetting about the sweater all together, and had to double back to pick a grey one she thought he probably would have looked especially handsome in since it matched the stormy color of his eyes. 

She returned to the kitchen, her face flushed and her body hot, but not from the warmth of the knit sweater she’d chosen. 

“You look much better,” Jon commented with a smile. 

“Jon, I…” She moved to stand in front of him as he turned off the stove and flipped the pancakes onto a plate. “I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.”

“Are you not well?” he asked, placing the back of his hand against her forehead. He wore an expression of concern she would have found adorable and enjoyed at any other moment. 

“I’m… no, not like that,” she said, putting a palm on his chest. She could feel the heat of his body through the thin cotton of the shirt. “I…” 

Jon saved her from the words she didn’t know then by kissing her, this time nothing like the slow, leisurely one they shared on the bridge. This time, his mouth was rough against hers with need, and he pulled her close enough so she could feel him hard against her hip. 

She drew him backwards by the fabric of his shirt, not really knowing which way to walk, how to avoid bumping the counter and chairs to reach his bedroom. 

“Sansa,” he choked once he realized where they headed. “We can’t go back from this.”

“I don’t want to,” she said, pulling his shirt up over his head. 

That unleashed a torrent of babbles, Jon suddenly as tired of being quiet as she was of keeping herself away from him. 

“I hated myself for feeling this,” he said in between their frantic clashes, “I tried not to, Sansa, but I couldn’t, I can’t—” 

She cut him off, dipping her tongue into his mouth, only for him to continue when they resurfaced. 

“I thought about you this morning, god, I wished you were here, and then you pulled up, and I thought I was fucking dreaming, I couldn’t believe it, that’s why I opened the door so fast…” 

She slipped his hands beneath the thickness of the sweater and led them upward to her breasts, a silent encouragement, a convincing affirmation, a passionate commendation. 

“How is this real?” he groaned, sliding his hands down her body, over her rain-softened skin. “You never seemed real to me.”

They reached his room at last and she was grateful he hadn’t bothered to make the bed, sitting right down on it as Jon tore at her clothes—first his own sweater, next her loose, wrinkled t-shirt, then the tight tank top beneath, and her bra before he moved downward to her shorts, her underwear. She found herself thankful again as he slid them off over her long legs, thinking how lucky it was they happened to be one of her cuter pairs, made out of dark blue lace, not that Jon seemed to give them much notice, flinging them aside to join the rest of her clothing. 

She caught an up-close glimpse of the body she’d admired from afar all summer before he knelt beside the bed and slipped out of sight—the hair on his chest, a thin line arrowing down to the waistband of his boxers, his shorts doing little to conceal his cock. 

It was odd, she thought, as she settled back on the bed, that being laid bare before Jon like this was far less terrifying than the first time she’d told him, weeks ago now, lip quivering, about her relationship with Joffrey, less strange than when she’d been struck by his sudden appearance and his long, dark curls at the start of the summer, less awkward than when she’d found his house and shown up out of nowhere. 

A memory she thought she’d forgotten flooded back as he pushed her legs apart, because the idea that Jon had done _that_ , picturing Jon doing _that_ , was weird to the Sansa of old times. She recalled the image of a girlfriend Jon had long ago, Ygritte, at the Stark house, whispering with Margaery, who’d shared the secret with Jeyne and Sansa later in the same hushed whispers. 

“He kissed her _there_ ,” Margaery gasped, incredulous. “Have you ever done that?” 

Sansa shook her head. Joffrey had never, _would_ never. She’d even thought it kind of disgusting then, regardless of what Margaery had seemed to think, but as Jon inched closer now, she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more. 

She pushed the conversation away, not wanting to think about him doing this to anyone else, but the way he let his tongue skim over her clit, the way he slid lower and licked up her center, hot and slow, made it feel as though there had never been anyone else for him, that all of his attentions were meant for her and her alone, and that it had always been that way, and soon she forgot completely anything besides the rhythm of his strokes, the scratch of his beard on her thighs, the decadent curve of his fingers inside her. 

She tried to stop herself from going over the edge, wanting to wait until he was inside, to see how that felt, to experience an orgasm like that truly, completely for the first time, but it was too tempting to let go, so she did. Pleasure spiked through her every fiber, the letdown nearly as dizzyingly satiating as the peak itself. 

“What do you like, Sansa?” Jon asked from the end of the bed, his voice raspy, his thumb still stroking over her like an irresistible compulsion. 

“Oh—um—” She’d never been asked before. “What you just did—that was nice…” 

He nodded and bent down again, swiping his tongue between her legs. She would have laughed at his diligence if it hadn’t felt so damn good, if he hadn’t robbed her of the very air she needed to speak, if he hadn’t made her wish words didn’t exist because this was better, better than all those nights just talking, better than worrying what to say and what to do. 

She let him continue and thought about his question as much as her overwrought brain allowed. She’d always preferred on top, because at least then she’d been able to take control and angle herself to attempt to find some pleasure while Joffrey laid there, eventually sighing when she tried everything and still couldn’t finish. But she would have been lying if she said she hadn’t dreamed of Jon above her, his body pressed against hers, driving into her… She knew with him it wouldn’t hurt, that he wouldn’t finish in minutes and roll off, leaving her alone and unsatisfied to dress herself. 

“Jon,” she finally found her voice, even if it died a second later in another breathy sigh. She steeled herself and tried again. “Jon, I want you…” 

The words hung in the air, sounding stupid, but she didn’t know what else to say; she’d never had to ask Joffrey, considering the most he ever said was “Okay?” or “Are you ready yet?” before he went ahead anyway. 

Jon looked up finally, his eyes dark as he tore them away from where they studied the place where his fingers gently stretched her. She waited for herself to blush, for her legs to shut at his intimate examination, but she found she had no desire to do so at all, that she wanted him to look, that she welcomed his desirous gaze, instead of wishing she could disappear beneath the blankets. 

She watched him as he stood and nearly stumbled over to his dresser, catching himself from falling as he rid himself of his boxers, offering her a split second to appreciate the view of his backside while he reached into his top drawer. He grabbed the box that had started this all, opened one flap of it, and tore the rest of the cardboard down the middle, leaving the condoms strewn about the floor, all but one which he rolled on in the fleeting second she considered allowing herself to giggle about his clumsiness. 

He sank onto the bed, looking unsure as to if he should flatten himself atop her or roll back and let her climb onto him, so she backed against the pillows and led him toward her, enjoying the unfamiliar feeling of true excitement pooling in her belly rather than the nerves she’d always mistaken as eager anticipation before. 

“You’re so beautiful, Sansa,” he murmured in between kisses. “And sweet. And kind. And— _fuck_.” 

He cut off his exaltations when she reached down to guide him inside. 

Jon was bigger than Joffrey, but he knew how to use it better, shifting to ease his weight off her. It helped too that she’d never been this wet before; it only took a second for Jon to slide all the way in until he was seated deep inside of her. 

Despite his position, Jon easily found all the spots Joffrey had apparently always ignored, and to her surprise, the powerful feeling came back, building again, somehow stronger, as if he hadn’t satisfied her once already. 

She’d never really given much thought for how this felt to him before, but she wanted to make Jon feel as good as he had made her, so she experimented with changing the angle of her hips and legs, seeing which made Jon breath faster, which made his inhales hitch in his throat, which made him press harder into her. He groaned when she finally wrapped her legs tightly around him, the sound making her clench around him. 

His hips seemed to move of their own volition, and yet he seemed determined to temper them, stilling every time he increased the pace too much. 

She pressed her hands on his back to encourage him. “I’m not made of glass, Jon.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “I know, but—” 

“It doesn’t hurt. I promise.” And to show him, to prove just how opposite of hurt she felt, she undulated beneath him, arching her back to draw him deeper, and he gave in. 

He didn’t have to try hard to coax her into coming again, the faster pace, the rub of his cock against that sweet, perfect spot inside enough to make her fall apart, whispering his name, biting her lip to stem the flow of more. 

He kissed her until his breath became ragged, his strokes uneven, and he buried his face in her neck as she felt him spill, the patter of the rain on the roof seeming to grow louder in the absence of the rustle of sheets and murmurs.

She let him go as he slipped away to the bathroom for a moment, only to return and curl her into his side. 

“Jon?” 

His chest rose and fell beneath her cheek. “Hm?” 

“Do you have to go out and collect rainwater?” 

“No…” 

She wondered how long she could get him to play this game. “Do you have to go bring in wood for the fire?” 

“No.” 

“What about picking your dinner from the garden before it becomes a swamp?”

He chuckled and ducked down to kiss her again. “I’m all yours, Sansa.” 

\-----------

The rest happened slowly. Slower than slow, like everything else. First Jon sent flowers, and when her mother asked where they were from, Sansa only had to say his name for her to understand. Then Arya caught them kissing a few days later on the back porch, and Sansa knew better than to try to swear her to secrecy. 

Jon took Robb out the next night and he returned in a foul mood, stomping upstairs to bed and slamming the door, but he still invited them both out the next day to a picnic with him and Jeyne as long as they promised to avoid any displays of affection. Sansa opened her mouth to point out the pot was calling the kettle black, but Jon convinced her to leave it be, that if Robb had learned to be civil with even the likes of Joffrey, he would be able to accept anything in time. 

She even saw Margaery and Joffrey at the grocery store one day several weeks later, and she found it in her heart to offer them a cordial wave. 

And as for Jon, when he invited her over for a dinner he cooked using the vegetables from the garden outside and they ate in front of a fire burning with the wood he’d cut, and when he sweetly made love to her and actually called it that and she giggled while he flushed red and muttered, “But it’s true,” and when, that fall, he regularly drove two hours there and back to surprise her at school just to bring her her favorite lemon cupcakes from the bakery in Winterfell that didn’t compare to anything else, that didn’t surprise her at all.


End file.
